Quintus Aurelius Symmachus → destinatário desconhecido

A friend's cause prompted me to write, but I must confess that my greater concern was for your reputation. For the distinguished Minucianus is at risk over a trifling sum of money, while for you a considerable path to glory will be opened if the false charge raised by forged promissory notes is laid to rest. It pains me to describe the schemes by which the agents of the Italian treasury are operating. They say that under the guise of public debt, fictitious private names are being read out. The weak are immediately overcome by the pressure, while the stronger, even when they have marshaled legal protections in their defense, are entangled in malicious interpretations of the law, so that they submit to bearing the loss out of fear of ill will. But the distinguished Minucianus, confident in you, wishes to have the threatening accusations of the official report quashed by proper examination. I beg you, therefore, to appoint judges whom the imperial appointment has set over urban authorities. For it is unworthy that a trivial debt involving a person of high rank should be referred to a distant hearing. I would go on at greater length, if fairness required many prayers to assist it. The official report will lay out the nature of the case; and though it may shield the examiner from error, it can never earn the right that his judgment should be trusted by you without another arbiter.